The "Gamification" Strategy Behind Lula's Victory

As results from the midterm elections continue flooding in, for the midweek podcast, we're taking a close look at the social media machinery behind incumbent left-wing Lula da Silva’s dramatic, nail-biting win against Flavio Bolsonaro in Brazil in late October. During the second round of voting on October 25th, da Silva earned 10 million more votes than he had in the first round, a stunning first in modern Brazilian history. In the aftermath of the victory, Adam Bumas, the Head of Research and Associate Editor at the independent news site Garbage Day, wrote a recent piece about how a social media strategy called "gamification," which is usually deployed by the far-right, may have boosted da Silva to victory. Host Micah Loewinger speaks to Bumas about the extremely online Brazilian congressman who pitched the strategy to da Silva, and how a "perfect storm" of factors led to the explosion of a WhatsApp group called "Lula's Army," which ended up exerting enormous influence on the election.